As the world rallies to the support of Ukraine, many — including many Ukrainians themselves — have compared their present battle to the biblical story of David vs. Goliath, the quintessence of underdog victories in the whole Western Canon.

They are not wrong.

The citizens of that nation and the Ukrainian military are almost inconceivably overmatched and face the greatest odds. At first blush, their chances are nearly as grim as were the potential futures for a naked shepherd boy as he walked unceremoniously into the Valley of Elah to match his skill against the greatest warrior of his age. The comparisons of today’s news and the biblical tale are so strong, in fact, that I’m put in mind of a particular retelling of David’s story. It is the most familiar representation of 1 Samuel 17 in some ways. Yet, in another, the embedded message is so subtle that it can be easily overlooked.

It’s fair to say that nearly everyone in the world who knows the story of David first imagines the sculpture by Michelangelo when asked to pull the scene to mind. Michelangelo’s David is perhaps the most famous work of art globally. The form, the lines, the proportions, the grace that the master worked into the stone are exquisite. Yet, I’d argue that the real reason Michelangelo’s David is so captivating is more mystifying than Il Divino’s skill with hammer and chisel. Beyond the perfect capture of human physicality, Michelangelo somehow manages to sculpt David’s interior world into stone, as well. He finds the single transcendent moment in David’s life and places it before us — though, when it occurred, it was entirely hidden from view.

Perhaps that truth is more obvious to me now, as we see the precise moment of spiritual change repeatedly overtake ordinary Ukrainian citizens from President Zelensky to teenagers who one week before might have caved to local bullies at the skatepark or mall.

To understand the change we’re seeing to ordinary men, women, and children, first, take a moment to search out other famous depictions of David and Goliath in Western art. Look for Bernini’s David, or Donatello’s, or Caravaggio’s. Study them, then look again at Michelangelo’s. See how different they are.

Now try to put yourself into the artists’ minds they approach — for the first time — the bare stone, the raw bronze, or the blank canvas before them. As each of them began their work, they needed to see the completed project in their mind, selecting the one flashing instant from David’s life that they felt might capture the battle entire. Bernini, for his part, resolved upon the spark of time when David’s stone is loosed from the sling. It is remarkable artistry, showing the shepherd boy’s body frozen in mid-whirl, his steely warrior’s gaze intent upon the quarry ahead. Donatello and Caravaggio, on the other hand, choose a more traditional framing: They both depict David after the battle when the tyrant’s head has been severed from his body and placed underfoot as if announcing a new order for the ages.

Yet, with Michelangelo, we’re in a different space entirely — one that, by my reckoning, is the actual juncture of victory.

Look again at that work and note how, if you didn’t know the story, you’d think that perhaps David was walking into a bath. The sling draped over his shoulder could be a shawl or a towel. He looks utterly at peace, though we know he is heading to war. He is so relaxed that you will be forgiven for not noticing that the stone he will use to slay Goliath already plays lightly in his right hand, which he slyly hides from view.

But now, look closer, and you’ll see the change he is undergoing.

Note the level gaze on his unperturbed face, and remind yourself that he is staring directly into the maw of near-certain death. Look at his feet. See how the weight of his body is slightly displaced onto the rear. He is ready to hurl the stone like a pitcher on the mound. Inspect the close-up of his head and neck and look at his nostrils. See how they’re flared? See now his jugular notch. Do you note how it’s drawn down into his sternum? That’s because he has just completed a final, deep inhalation — his moment has arrived. Look at the neck and see how Michelangelo sculpted David’s carotid artery in mid-pulse — it is raised just slightly above the skin.

Now ask yourself why.

What is it about THIS moment that made Michelangelo see it as the sine qua non and apotheosis of a young man’s transition into grace?

Bernini shows David in the motion of battle, and, sure, that’s important. Caravaggio and Donatello depict David once Goliath is dead and gone — and, yes, that’s what historians consider the crucial result.

But Michelangelo takes us to a different moment altogether, doesn’t he?

He takes us to a truer moment — perhaps the truest moment in anyone’s life, the moment — if we are ready to catch it — that will transform us from the common lot into kings and queens.

Michelangelo, in this sculpture, captures David’s ascension to greatness — and yet, the stone is still in his hand.

What Michelangelo understood — what Volodymyr Zelensky and every Ukrainian bracing to face down Russian tanks with glass bottles and gasoline understand — is that victory is achieved long before the enemy is routed from the field. Victory is achieved when fear is set aside, and a decision is made to stand your ground no matter what hell might come.

We do not yet know precisely how this battle will unfold in the coming days, weeks, months, or even years — but Putin is a dead-man walking. He has blundered historically. He has blundered Goliathily. He has assured his destruction personally, and unless the Duma ships him off to The Hague tout de suite, he will ruin all of Russia, as well.

As it was millennia ago with the lumbering king of the Philistines, Vladimir Putin’s arrogance has met the obstinate heroism of forty million Davids, and they are each now walking — slowly and implacably — into their own Valley of Elah. They are doing so with a transcendent determination to slay a tyrant, to kill a giant, to live free. May we have the wisdom and the decency to at least keep sending them stones.

A rare moment in history has arrived.

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